


The Nedley Files

by burglebezzlement



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Black Badge Division, Gen, Legacies, POV Nedley, References to Ward Earp's canonical alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9488702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: As the Sheriff of Purgatory, Randy Nedley’s got a desk drawer full of case files he can’t explain, and a lifetime of trying not to think too hard about the supernatural.Then Xavier Dolls shows up.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



> Happy Chocolate Box!

Sheriff Randy Nedley sits down behind his desk. “Got another case for you, Scully.”

Haught scowls at him. He knows exactly what she wants to say, because she said it to him the first time he called her that. _Scully was the skeptical one._ Only Haught’s got red hair, and she’s investigating the paranormal for Washington, D.C., so it’s close enough for him. 

He pushes the file across the desk. She picks it up and skims through the first few pages before looking up at him.

“Ghost deer? Really?”

“Just one ghost deer,” Randy says. “George Martin says he shot at it and the bullet went right through.”

“George Martin is a drunk.” Haught puts the file back down on the desk. “You know how many times I’ve pulled him out of Shorty’s at closing time.”

“Good thing he’s not the only one who’s seen it, then,” Randy says. “Figure you can show it to that other boss of yours. See if it’s the sort of thing Black Badge is interested in.”

Haught picks the file up again. “I’ll show it to him,” she says.

She doesn’t say whether Deputy Marshall Xavier Dolls will investigate it. Randy figured on that. Dolls has only been back in town a few weeks. Only had Haught working on his team that long, too. Randy wondered how Haught would handle it, working for the both of them. Answer is, Dolls ain’t been asking her for much.

Probably driving Haught up a tree, he thinks, as she walks out of his office. She’s a good officer. Got the makings of a great one, maybe, if she can stop herself from falling down the rabbit hole of the Ghost River Triangle.

Randy unlocks the lower left drawer of his desk and files his copy of the ghost deer report under Animals — Apparitions. He’s got enough old reports in there to keep feeding Black Badge cold cases for years to come.

One of these days, he’s going to need a bigger drawer.

* * *

Haught doesn’t tell him anything else about the ghost deer investigation, but Randy sees Dolls and Wynonna head out in the black SUV the next day, dressed for the woods. Dolls doesn’t look happy. More like he’s being led to his doom.

But then, Dolls hasn’t seemed right since he got back. The Black Badge team spars in the same space the Sheriff’s staff uses, and Randy figures Dolls got slower. Either that or Wynonna got faster, but that doesn’t seem likely; girl was well nigh on supernaturally fast already.

* * *

It’s the small things that stand out to Randy. The way Dolls glares at the coffeemaker. The man used to glare like he could melt the thing with the force of his hatred. Or maybe it’s the way Dolls sets out on a job, like he’s expecting to get injured.

Randy decides to say something a few days later. Haught and Wynonna are out on some goose-chase or another, knocking on doors down in Canyon Creek Villas, one of the nicer trailer parks out halfway to Jermyn Bend. 

When Randy knocks at the door to the Black Badge offices, Waverly Earp’s got her nose buried in a stack of old papers, like usual. She looks up, but it’s Dolls who comes to the door.

Randy stays back. “Got a minute?”

Dolls glares back at his computer and then shakes his head. “Fine.” He goes through some elaborate shut-down protocol on the computer and then follows Randy back to his office, down the hall.

“You want something?” Randy motions for Dolls to come in. “Know you don’t drink, but I got hibiscus tea. My daughter Chrissy keeps pushing it on me. Says it’ll lower my blood pressure.” It also tastes like a lemon’s ass, and stains anything he spills it on, but he loves his daughter, so sometimes he drinks it anyway.

Dolls isn’t saying anything, so Randy hands him an empty mug and motions towards the couch. It’s not about what’s in the mug; it’s about the symbol, the gesture.

“I knew the girls’ father,” Randy says. “Ward Earp.”

Dolls raises an eyebrow. “This story going somewhere?”

Randy has a cold mug of Chrissy’s hibiscus tea on his desk, so he takes a sip. Worse cold, he thinks.

“Ward Earp was a few years ahead of me in the Sheriff’s office,” Randy says. “Trained me when I was a rookie. He got drunk one night and told me some things.”

“So?”

“So it sounded pretty weird,” Randy says. “Curses and Earps and people Wyatt Earp sent to hell. Bizarre shit. I had just married my wife, and Chrissy was on the way, so I said my excuses and left him there.” 

Dolls leans back against the couch.

Randy takes another sip of the tea. “I figured he was talking through his hat,” he says. “The man used to drink like it was his second job. You pull enough drunks out of Shorty’s, you get to figuring most of them are just talking nonsense.”

Randy meets Dolls’ eyes. “Only Ward wasn’t, was he?” Randy asks.

Xavier Dolls could take Vegas with his poker face, but Randy’s been Sheriff for long enough to have some experience reading the hard cases. He sees the tiny movement at the corner of Dolls’ lips. The way his eyes twitch, just barely. 

Not that it matters. Randy’s known the kind of things that go on in this town for a long, long time. Known they were above his paygrade, maybe. But he’s known.

“I don’t know what happened to you, after all that ruckus at the Solstice,” Randy says, now. “Figure something political, something with Black Badge.”

Dolls doesn’t say anything. 

“She needs you,” Randy says. “Wynonna.” 

The way Dolls’ eyes widen tell him he scored a hit there. Might not be everything Xavier Dolls’ has been worrying about, but it is one of the things.

“Her daddy wasn’t much of a man,” Randy says. “Used to get drunk a lot. Seeing your own daddy go young must do something to a man, but I figure it was the pressure, knowing that he had to take on all those legions of Hell by himself. He had Curtis McCreedy and that was about it.

“Wynonna, now, she’s got Waverly and Haught and that Doc fellow, and she’s got you. Even with whatever your bosses did to you that you ain’t telling her about.”

Dolls goes still on the couch. 

“How did you —”

“You’ve been moving different since you got back,” Randy says. He takes a sip of the hibiscus tea and grimaces. “Figured you wouldn’t tell Wynonna, though.”

Dolls takes in a deep breath and lets it out, his shoulders sagging, just a bit, like he’s taken off a heavy load. 

“You won’t tell —”

“Won’t tell Wynonna,” Randy says. “No. You probably should, though. She cares about you, any fool could see that.”

The way Dolls shifts tells Randy that maybe Dolls is the fool who can’t.

Randy waits until Dolls meets his eyes.

“You’re a good man,” Randy says. “Wynonna needs you. Not someone like you, not Black Badge — you.”

Dolls holds the eye contact, and then nods, slow. “So what do you want from me?”

“Way I figure it, you all are the best chance Purgatory’s had at cleaning up whatever’s going on,” Randy says. “You want access to my files?”

“The ones you’ve been dribbling out to Haught?” The corner of Dolls’ mouth quirks up in what might be a smile.

“Those would be the ones.” Randy pushes the mug of cold tea back on his desk and unlocks his desk drawer. “Figured you’d know what you were looking for better than me.”

“We do have a curse to break,” Dolls says. “Allegedly. I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Randy smiles. 

“You want to start from A or Z?”


End file.
